Hindsight 20/20: Would You Once Again Make the R.A. Dickey Trade?

December 17, 2012: R.A Dickey Traded by the New York Mets with Mike Nickeas and Josh Thole to the Toronto Blue Jays for Noah Syndergaard (minors), Wuilmer Becerra (minors), John Buck and Travis d’Arnaud. – source B-Ref

The Goal: Playoffs or bust

The Result: In Question

Last night MLB.com unveiled their 2014 Top 100 Prospects list, with both Syndergaard & d’Arnaud placing ahead of Aaron Sanchez and every other Jays prospect. Short scouting videos via MLB.com:

Noah Syndergaard: No. 11 overall; No. 3 RHP

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Travis d’Arnaud: No. 22 overall; No. 1 C

Conversely, R.A. Dickey struggled, seeing dips in his K-Rate, increases to his BB-Rate and a drastic uptick in HR/9. He started to regain form in the latter half of the season, yet ended the season with a line of:

The Jays were going for broke last off season, so it made complete sense to do it then. Hard to justify it now that we know the team is a horror show.

Delabar’s Weighted Balls

Last year I was 50-50. This year, looking back, I understand it more, so I’m like 60-40 in favour, even though Syndergaard might be a beast (might not). He’s probably ranked higher because he’s in the Big Apple.

We needed help then. It was close to a fair trade at the time, but the timing along the development curves made sense for both clubs. D’Arnaud is also taking a long time to develop.

Dickey can still be a plus pitcher at 12 mil/yr over the next 2 yrs + option. It’s hard to argue against the deal at the time, let’s revisit this question in a year as well!

Cameron McPhail

Without the Dickey and Buerle deals, who would have pitched any innings for them last year? They would have been at least 10 wins worse.

While some will come back that they were about 6 WAR combined, I see what your saying.

But ultimately, if the Jays had 10 fewer wins, would it have mattered in 2013?

64 or 74 wins still misses the playoffs.

Cameron McPhail

True – but how bad would the replacements been? They were already into double digits in their starters depth (Romero #6, Redmond #7, Rogers #8, Wang #9, R. Ortiz #10) with both these guys in hand and pitching 200+ innings each.

Dickey is worth his salary. They rolled the dice on Josh Johnson and lost – him and Morrow healthy and they were a 90+ win team.

It would have mattered to me. I was glued to my TV until they really went in the s&&&er. That win streak was the most fun I’ve had watching ball in a long time. In addition, both of those guys are assets which could be spun off should things go south.

They are better than a 74 win team already- especially if the 2012 Brendan Morrow shows up for 25+ starts, if Dickey and Buehrle remember the bumps and hollows of pitching in the Rogers Centre (last 3/4 of year).

PB

Obviously it wouldn’t have made a difference for last season’s goals, but the trade still makes sense for this season if the Jays want to make the playoffs.